K2 bites the bullet in Reunification Part 96

[Chicago]

Also - why oh why are we still holding a Div 3 event at the same time/place as a Pro event? Can someone name one other sport that the spread of competitor abilities and finances at the same event is the same as Paintball as I can't think of one. The SPL thing (appears) to have worked because it was in a dedicated environment without the limitations and compromises required by holding a big, multi-level event.

In the US, most of the extreme sports work this way. They come into a location for a week and run lots of different divisions. In paintball, you can't run 6 Pro-only events. You need the lower teams to make your league profitable (Pro paintball is not), both with their own entry fees and by buying stuff from vendors who kick back some of the money.

 

[Chicago]

Which brings me to Pete's post:

With the Smart Parts deal, one of three things will happen:

- Although EXTREMELY unlikely in the near future, enough advertisers line up for it to be so profitable that players get significant compensation for playing. Smart Parts is thus able to offer exclusive contracts to players. All the non-Pros play in a unified PSP/NPPL circuit without the Pro players who are playin the Smart Parts league (this would be a bit like the first NXL years when PSP had NXL and Open, only without the common event locations). At this point, Smart Parts has pretty much 'won' the TV game.

- Enough advertisers line up for it to be profitable, but not so much that the players receive any significant compensation. Pro teams will still play a unified circuit for the prize money, and once a year some of them will runoff to a studio somewhere to film Smart Part's series. The TV door will be 'open' to someone else who wants to put on programming though.

- Smart Parts deal goes the way of the NPPL deal - well produced, but not enough advertiser interest for it to be profitable. Back to the status quo. This is the situation that least lends itself to reunification, although fickle paintball gods willing, reunification will happen anyway.


I don't see any likely major upheaval, unless the Smart Parts deal miraculously starts pulling in millions of dollars. This is unlikely, as most of the marketing value in paintball is *NOT*, currently, in television.

 

[Beaker]

In the US, most of the extreme sports work this way. They come into a location for a week and run lots of different divisions. In paintball, you can't run 6 Pro-only events. You need the lower teams to make your league profitable (Pro paintball is not), both with their own entry fees and by buying stuff from vendors who kick back some of the money.

I'm not saying you can run Pro-onlys, but surely there is more of a qualification required than a cheque book to these other events? I don't know, I've been to a coupel of skate and snowboard events and they were either Pro-only, or like the CFOA and XPSL is to the Majors. Can you expand on how these other sports do it in terms of qualification/money?

With the Smart Parts deal, one of three things will happen:

All of which lead to reunification - either voluntary or otherwise.


Also - did you get my email friday?

 

[Beaker]

The only way we will have any sort of handle on what format we play is if TV DOESN'T get involved and even then I am not so sure we will have any real influence.

The format is only important for live coverage or specatator driven events.

If paintball is forever going to be in a highlight reel format then as long as the network get enough raw footage to work with and edit down, then the rest is pointless. I watched a wakeboarding comp on the weekend. I have no idea how many runs they got, how they were scored or whether they got to practice stuff they screwed up first time. I just know the guy who did the triple toe loop double axel combo won it in a head to head with the guy with pink bits on his board. Frankly that's all that mattered but I sat down for 30 mins and was entertained by the cock-ups and the mistakes as well as the "wow that's good" bits.

ESPN doesn't care about the format - as long as it has enough raw material to work with, TV is happy.

So for reunification, either format will work, as it seem with the SP bit that both X-Ball and 7-Man have had their time on TV and both have come out OK.

 

[Robbo]

The format is only important for live coverage or specatator driven events.

If paintball is forever going to be in a highlight reel format then as long as the network get enough raw footage to work with and edit down, then the rest is pointless. I watched a wakeboarding comp on the weekend. I have no idea how many runs they got, how they were scored or whether they got to practice stuff they screwed up first time. I just know the guy who did the triple toe loop double axel combo won it in a head to head with the guy with pink bits on his board. Frankly that's all that mattered but I sat down for 30 mins and was entertained by the cock-ups and the mistakes as well as the "wow that's good" bits.

ESPN doesn't care about the format - as long as it has enough raw material to work with, TV is happy.

So for reunification, either format will work, as it seem with the SP bit that both X-Ball and 7-Man have had their time on TV and both have come out OK.

I think you are maybe forgetting one thing here, the format does matter because of the basic principle of...the better the format the less the editing.

 

[Chicago]

I think you are maybe forgetting one thing here, the format does matter because of the basic principle of...the better the format the less the editing.

Eh, the format doesn't really have much impact on the amount of editting. You've got to do a lot of editting regardless, change in amount of editting due to format is negligible in the grand scheme of things.

We should pick a format that PLAYS well in terms of running events - a format players like to play and that works financially for promoters, scaling from small local events up to large national events. If and when you need to accomodate TV, you can make your required format changes then.


I don't think TV is necessarily going to demand a wholesale format change. I've had networks ask us to tweak the format (they hate the whole one team is gone but you still gotta spend time having a guy walk the flag in) but other than that don't seem to care much. Really, they don't even know what to care about.

When you get down to it, what is good about paintball on television is players moving while getting shot at, seeing where players are shooting, seeing players get hit, and one thing I've noticed that may not be obvious, is SOUND. If you can HEAR the sound of paint bouncing off the bunker of the player, and HEAR the player yelling to the teammates, and HEAR the player shooting, that really changes the experience for the viewer. Those things are going to happen no matter what format you play, so then you just gotta decide whether you're going to try and broadcast paintball live. If no, format really doesn't matter, if yes, then you do need to have a format without too much dead time (dead time for commercials is ok, dead time during play is not).

Think of it like the difference between watching football in a football movie and watching football on TV on Sunday. Same football, but when you've got the full-on in-your-face closeup-with-sound football of a football movie, it just FEELS more intense, doesn't it? That's the kind of thing we should be trying to do with paintball. That's something that worked well in our show in 2005 and not so well in 2006 due to our camera guys just not being nearly as good the second time around.

That's another reason I prefer to have paintball filmed outdoors - better sound.



I'd like to hit on one more thing here: If and when television becomes an important revenue stream for the sport, we'll change the format to be TV friendly on our own. We'll want more viewers, because the viewers will be paying the bills. Many widely televised sports have gone under rules changes at some point for the express purpose of helping television ratings. (Shot clock anyone?) That's just life as a Pro sport.

 

[Robbo]

Chris, eh???
I love that expression 'eh'?????, a couple of letters that means so much eh Chris?

I will explain my position, if you have a 7 man formatted game, then my assertion is, you will have to do more editing with that than you would an XBall game in terms of presenting exciting viewing.
Are you disputing that ?

 

[Chicago]

Chris, eh???
I love that expression 'eh'?????, a couple of letters that means so much eh Chris?

I will explain my position, if you have a 7 man formatted game, then my assertion is, you will have to do more editing with that than you would an XBall game in terms of presenting exciting viewing.
Are you disputing that ?

I wouldn't say that there's NO difference, just not a significant one. You have to cut the show into 23 or 46 minutes or whatever. You're going to have so many cameras, and you're going to need to get 23 or 46 minutes of footage that goes on the television out of length of event*number of cameras footage. So regardless of format, you STILL have to edit together 46 minutes of programming.

The only difference is that if you only use 20% of one format but 80% of another format, you'll have more footage to go through (have to film longer) for the format you're only using 20% of the total time on-screen in order to get your 46 minutes. Going through the extra may be a bit more work, but some editors will also tell you that they'd prefer the extra footage so they have more to work with.

And, picking the 46 minutes that's going to end up in the program is only a small portion of the total editting effort. Then you still gotta cut it all together, put the sound on it, put the graphics on it. Those efforts are the same regardless of how much you're cutting; it's 46 minuts of programming you're editting either way.


So, at worst, you have to watch more footage, at best your editor is less likely to find himself in a tough spot because he doesn't have the footage he wants. And even in the worst case, depending how you film it, you've made most of your decisions on what is going to make it into the program when you filmed it so the editor doesn't have much work to do there either way. (As you're filming, you'll 'mark' where on tape interesting things happen, and what cameras they happened on.)

For example, last show we did, we did a live cut, i.e., we editted the program together live as the event was being played. Obviously the cuts wern't in the right spots and the sound wasn't right, but at that point the editor knew within a few seconds either way what camera he should be looking at and at what time.

 

[JtJ]

What is the longest stretch of time that "raw" footage (meaning an uninterupted feed from one camera) can be used in a show? In your experience.

 

[Robbo]

I wouldn't say that there's NO difference, just not a significant one. You have to cut the show into 23 or 46 minutes or whatever. You're going to have so many cameras, and you're going to need to get 23 or 46 minutes of footage that goes on the television out of length of event*number of cameras footage. So regardless of format, you STILL have to edit together 46 minutes of programming.

The only difference is that if you only use 20% of one format but 80% of another format, you'll have more footage to go through (have to film longer) for the format you're only using 20% of the total time on-screen in order to get your 46 minutes. Going through the extra may be a bit more work, but some editors will also tell you that they'd prefer the extra footage so they have more to work with.

And, picking the 46 minutes that's going to end up in the program is only a small portion of the total editting effort. Then you still gotta cut it all together, put the sound on it, put the graphics on it. Those efforts are the same regardless of how much you're cutting; it's 46 minuts of programming you're editting either way.


So, at worst, you have to watch more footage, at best your editor is less likely to find himself in a tough spot because he doesn't have the footage he wants. And even in the worst case, depending how you film it, you've made most of your decisions on what is going to make it into the program when you filmed it so the editor doesn't have much work to do there either way. (As you're filming, you'll 'mark' where on tape interesting things happen, and what cameras they happened on.)

For example, last show we did, we did a live cut, i.e., we editted the program together live as the event was being played. Obviously the cuts wern't in the right spots and the sound wasn't right, but at that point the editor knew within a few seconds either way what camera he should be looking at and at what time.

...so that's a 'no' then eh???